Coming of Spirit Pestilence

In the late 1700s when European colonizers arrived on the Northwest Coast, they reported the presence of vigorous, diverse cultures—Tlingit, Haida, Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl), Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka), Coast Salish, and Chinookan—with a population conservatively estimated at more than 180,000. Just a century later the population had plummeted to only 35,000—a devastating loss of Indigenous lives caused by the introduction of diseases brought by settlers and colonizers.

The Coming of the Spirit…